Yeah, that’s a pretty common paradox on the right. They want a small, non-interventionist government. Expect when it comes to stuff they don’t like. Then they want the government all over that shit.
Transgender rights discussion
- Thread starter crappycraperson
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Yeah, that’s a pretty common paradox on the right. They want a small, non-interventionist government. Expect when it comes to stuff they don’t like. Then they want the government all over that shit.
They view trans and other non hetero people as defective and their elitism has an inate predilection towards eugenics that outweighs any other considerations their Christian faith might otherwise lead them to such as compassion and leaving judgement to god.
The reality is that people killing themselves because they're unhappy in their own skin is an actual problem but again, they'd rather be rid of these people than help them.
I would say this is the most extreme form of confirmation bias, but at this point, they do not even need confirmation.
I mean obviously I knew a little about how bad some of them were but my word, Rowling is for all intents and purposes an agent of the --- - -----*.
*Not because it's not true but because she could sue.
*Not because it's not true but because she could sue.
All that suggests is that there’s been a massive increase in articles about anything to do with trans issues since 2012. Is that really a big surprise?
Forstater has recently been going off on twitter, in a really Glinneresque way, because a library has an alien mascot from a species that is genderless. Of course it's trans propaganda, that goes without saying, but it's also completely implausible and unscientific that this species doesn't reproduce sexually (I don't remember if the library said this or if she figured it out because of no gender) because the alien is a bit anthropomorphic rather than a slime and because it has a spine. It's quite the spectacle.
The likes of Forstater and other TERFs just can't stop thinking about genitalia, it's pathological. They're dangerous.
graham norton gets interviewed, he says that people shouldn't listen to celebs like him and instead talk to trans people, their parents, and doctors. because of this, rowling calls him a rape apologist, and her terf twitter minions send him so much abuse he quits twitter
normal day on terf island
normal day on terf island
Video of what he said.
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That's the fifth time I have done that today. Clearly copying and pasting too many tweets. Thanks for the heads up. Hopefully the Times video excerpt should be showing for you?
Tis, much appreciated!
I've watched this now. It's 30 minutes long so most understandably won't bother, so I thought I'd give some notes. As the title says it's not mainly about Rowling, but the people she associates with; those in the picture and other people she pals around with online and in real life. A theme that keeps repeating is that these people say they're not anti trans, they're just worried about women's rights, and how this is hard to square with how most of them work with and support the right wing. Here there are examples of everything from "normal" conservatives to far right fascists and white nationalists, it's people who oppose the right to abortion, the right to gay marriage and people who want to criminalize gay sex. The last two points aren't directly related to women's rights, but they are rights that have historically been important for and supported by feminist movements, and maybe more on the nose is the fact that these people very often use lesbians as a shield for their views. They say they just want to protect lesbians from men who think they are women, but they don't have a problem with people who want to throw lesbians in jail.
Right out of the gate, at 0:45, there's an illustrative example of how Rowling frames things. She writes about Magdalen Berns:
Here are just two out of many, many of Berns' tweets. She was also a fan of Milo, a nazi and an apologist for peadophilia. Rowling is aware of all this:
Is this someone who just cares deeply about biological sex and someone who just doesn't want lesbians to be called bigots (this is an extremely common refrain from Rowling in particular, while it is something that is very rare and is not why the TERF crowd is receiving criticism)? No, of course not, it's a laughable thing to say but Rowling does it anyway. It's not an accident, for two reasons: 1) It's a "mistake" she keeps repeating, and 2) it's a "mistake" she never makes when she talks about trans people or activists.
Another example from around the 8 minute mark, here's a tweet:
This is about an event called "Let Women Speak", and Rowling has mentioned this a lot. Now, the thing is, it was a general gender critical event about the alleged dangers of trans ideology, it was not about lesbians. They were mentioned, of course, but it was not the focus of the event. The majority of speakers were not lesbians, either, I don't know if anyone were but it's possible. So right out of the gate Rowling is lying about what sort of an event this is, is she leaving anything else out? The main organizer was Posie Parker, someone who believes that trans people should be forcefully sterilized. Hearts of Oak were there (Tommy Robinson), and other right wingers and fascists.
Around 23:30 Shaun makes a more general point when he asks what it actually means to support gay rights or the right to an abortion. When asked Rowling will say that she supports these things, and I'm sure that this is true. If there was a vote she would vote for. But she's not voting. She's also not campaigning, she's mostly silent. That's fine, most people are, but in addition to being silent she's constantly supporting and working with people campaigning against those rights. What does that mean? On that note, here's another tweet where among other things she showcases her impeccable sense of humor and drops all pretenses about supporting trans people:
Emma Nicholson is a personal friend of Rowlng. She is also a politician, a Baroness who is a member of the House of Lords, who campaigns to restrict abortion rights and against gay marriage. Just to cap all this off, here's a last one:
"innocent gay boys" is referring to trans women. Kavanagh was later banned again from Twitter when he sent death threats to Mermaids and Stonewall. Rowling knows all this because she keeps blocking people who bring it up to her in case she just wasn't aware.
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@NotThatSoph doesn't feck around, as usual.
Kinda on topic, just watched the new john oliver show, where he addresses this again. So infuriating seeing these fecking conservative politicians literally stealing these kids' childhoods because of their prejudices and malice.
If anyone is interested:
They have to make that little girl meet dolly parton in a future episode.
Kinda on topic, just watched the new john oliver show, where he addresses this again. So infuriating seeing these fecking conservative politicians literally stealing these kids' childhoods because of their prejudices and malice.
If anyone is interested:
They have to make that little girl meet dolly parton in a future episode.
She is so disgusting.
What kind of hell have we made that values such displays of public depravity as cultural currency.
Sensational post. Thanks for this.I've watched this now. It's 30 minutes long so most understandably won't bother, so I thought I'd give some notes. As the title says it's not mainly about Rowling, but the people she associates with; those in the picture and other people she pals around with online and in real life. A theme that keeps repeating is that these people say they're not anti trans, they're just worried about women's rights, and how this is hard to square with how most of them work with and support the right wing. Here there are examples of everything from "normal" conservatives to far right fascists and white nationalists, it's people who oppose the right to abortion, the right to gay marriage and people who want to criminalize gay sex. The last two points aren't directly related to women's rights, but they are rights that have historically been important for and supported by feminist movements, and maybe more on the nose is the fact that these people very often use lesbians as a shield for their views. They say they just want to protect lesbians from men who think they are women, but they don't have a problem with people who want to throw lesbians in jail.
Right out of the gate, at 0:45, there's an illustrative example of how Rowling frames things. She writes about Magdalen Berns:
Here are just two out of many, many of Berns' tweets. She was also a fan of Milo, a nazi and an apologist for peadophilia. Rowling is aware of all this:
Is this someone who just cares deeply about biological sex and someone who just doesn't want lesbians to be called bigots (this is an extremely common refrain from Rowling in particular, while it is something that is very rare and is not why the TERF crowd is receiving criticism)? No, of course not, it's a laughable thing to say but Rowling does it anyway. It's not an accident, for two reasons: 1) It's a "mistake" she keeps repeating, and 2) it's a "mistake" she never makes when she talks about trans people or activists.
Another example from around the 8 minute mark, here's a tweet:
This is about an event called "Let Women Speak", and Rowling has mentioned this a lot. Now, the thing is, it was a general gender critical event about the alleged dangers of trans ideology, it was not about lesbians. They were mentioned, of course, but it was not the focus of the event. The majority of speakers were not lesbians, either, I don't know if anyone were but it's possible. So right out of the gate Rowling is lying about what sort of an event this is, is she leaving anything else out? The main organizer was Posie Parker, someone who believes that trans people should be forcefully sterilized. Hearts of Oak were there (Tommy Robinson), and other right wingers and fascists.
Around 23:30 Shaun makes a more general point when he asks what it actually means to support gay rights or the right to an abortion. When asked Rowling will say that she supports these things, and I'm sure that this is true. If there was a vote she would vote for. But she's not voting. She's also not campaigning, she's mostly silent. That's fine, most people are, but in addition to being silent she's constantly supporting and working with people campaigning against those rights. What does that mean? On that note, here's another tweet where among other things she showcases her impeccable sense of humor and drops all pretenses about supporting trans people:
Emma Nicholson is a personal friend of Rowlng. She is also a politician, a Baroness who is a member of the House of Lords, who campaigns to restrict abortion rights and against gay marriage. Just to cap all this off, here's a last one:
"innocent gay boys" is referring to trans women. Kavanagh was later banned again from Twitter when he sent death threats to Mermaids and Stonewall. Rowling knows all this because she keeps blocking people who bring it up to her in case she just wasn't aware.
This is about an event called "Let Women Speak", and Rowling has mentioned this a lot. Now, the thing is, it was a general gender critical event about the alleged dangers of trans ideology, it was not about lesbians. They were mentioned, of course, but it was not the focus of the event. The majority of speakers were not lesbians, either, I don't know if anyone were but it's possible. So right out of the gate Rowling is lying about what sort of an event this is, is she leaving anything else out? The main organizer was Posie Parker, someone who believes that trans people should be forcefully sterilized. Hearts of Oak were there (Tommy Robinson), and other right wingers and fascists.
She’s not lying though. That tweet doesn’t even try to describe what the event is about other than alluding to “women speaking out about sex based rights”. Which must be close to the truth, right? The rest is just a rant about what she sees as nasty tactics from trans rights activists.
Seems to me there are bad actors all over the place in this whole grim war. That includes those who twist words to portray well know authors as liars. Even though that’s a lesser crime than the much more evil right wingers who will use someone like Rowling as a figurehead for whatever agenda they want to bring to the party.
I notice that you don't mention Rowling herself, only her being used as a figurehead.
Well, in the post I responded to, Rowling’s being criticised based on the opinions of people who are aligning themselves with her cause. They’re the people I’m alluding to. Tommy Robinson, for example.
I’m not aware of Rowling herself holding extreme right wing or conservative opinions on any other issues. Are you?
Not as such, no. She should probably reject their support, though, if they're particularly unsavoury.
Some more fun. A few days ago Graham Norton spoke at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. Among other things the topic was cancel culture, and Rowling's name came up. CNN reports:
Billy Bragg - the singer-songwriter rather than the infamous Cafite - supported Norton's take on Twitter, to which Rowling responded by accusing them of supporting rape and death threats.
Billy Bragg - the singer-songwriter rather than the infamous Cafite - supported Norton's take on Twitter, to which Rowling responded by accusing them of supporting rape and death threats.
What's Robert Galbraith said now?
I thought Norton spoke really well on the subject, just goes to show how far off the deep-end she's gone to react so aggressively towards that
Yeah. He was good. The video is doing the rounds. Rowling’s definitely ended up doing that thing which everyone who spends any time involved immersed in the online culture war ends up doing. Divides anyone who gets involved into two discrete categories “with us” or “against us”. A Venn diagram with no overlap. It’s very childish and kind of fascinating to watch. They’re all at it though. On both sides.
Both sides of the "should trans people have rights" debate.
I find the both sides rhetoric very problematic considering one of these sides is fighting to to simply live an equal life in peace and the other side is trying to prevent that from happening. I get what you’re trying to say, in that some people are obviously resorting to means that are unwarranted. But painting both sides as equally wrong is unwarranted and dangerous. There is no violence in the simple act of fighting for acceptance and equality. Any violence on this side lies merely with the means chosen to fight.
But the fight to prevent this equality is inherently violent, no matter which means are being chosen.
Ah yeah. I’m not doing the Trump thing here. Implying both sides are as bad as each other. One of these two sides has far more unpleasant and mean spirited people on their side than the other. Which is, at the very least, well intentioned.
My comment is more aimed at the field of battle where this happens. There are plenty of people with nuanced opinions that might disagree with some elements of the debate while agreeing about the other. But they don’t get heard as their opinions don’t suit 140 character slanging matches. So the whole thing is unbelievably toxic. Which is why I think people who spend too long immersed in the whole shit show (people like Rowling) end up going a little nuts.
twitter also creates an incredible echo chamber, and gives a bigot a feedback loop that justifies it in their own head. and once you go too far down that rabbit hole, there's no escape. Rowling is slowly going down the Glinner path, you can see she's far less veiled than she was a year or so ago.
Not a fair summary and you know it.
Yeah, definitely. It’s like some mad psychological experiment.
As far as I know, the echo chamber effect has never been proven and recent studies suggest effects to the opposite. Social Media has led to an environment wherein people are confronted with extreme and differing views much more frequently. Which explains how absurd conspiracy theories find so many followers these days. They simply reach more people than they used to.
Groupthink might very well exist online. But the bigger the platform, the less likely it is to occur.
I’m not familiar with the research at all.
But always imagined that someone with lots of followers like Rowling or Linehan who gets immersed in a controversial subject would end up reading a fairly carefully curated selection of replies to their tweets, due to blocking and muting all the accounts most involved in the debate who are critical of their opinions. And, conversely, being constantly exposed to the most active accounts who always agree with their opinions.
Feck knows how you study that phenomenon
In cases of figures like Rowling it’s obviously somewhat difficult to normal people. No matter what they say, they will always find people agreeing (or disagreeing) with them. So I assume that, depending on the character, possible narcissistic tendencies and so on, some people will simply seek out the positive responses and feel vindicated in their opinions. No matter how horrible, wrong or absurd they might be. I think that’s what happened to her and happens to many extremely famous people during their life. Especially from the many people who might financially benefit off of them. That will obviously change a person in some way or another.
But us normale people don’t experience this often quoted echochamber. We go through the opposite. I’m frequently confronted with hardcore racist views on the internet, no person in my circle would ever dare to voice publicly or even privately.
A little bit unfair, but my comment is mostly based on the fact that you made very sure to end your post with "Both sides." It (the post) gives the impression that you consider yourself in the englightenend middle, while on both sides of you are the bad faith actors. That might be a lot to read into your post, but it's a common challenge with online discourse.
Definitely disagree with the above fairly strongly re echo chambers not existing in online communities...the algorithms are going to adjust to user preferences in most cases. It even happens on here all the time with players being scapegoated. You do get outliers, like the whole world being pushed Andrew Tate for a few weeks to push engagement with him, even though he's fairly clearly a gowl. On the whole though, the daily consumption of the everyman is tailored to their interests - on Reddit, I see /r/soccer and /r/reddevils, I never come across /r/Liverpool. Anecdotally, it's fairly handy to see from the language people use over time too...you used to have lads in rural Ireland calling people "snowflakes" and the like because their YouTube was all Alex Jones and the "change my mind" prick. It's just naturally gonna happen over time - moreso with some platforms than others.
It’s still, as far as I’m concerned, not proven to exist and recent studies do suggest otherwise. We are exposed to much more opinions than we’ve been before the ascend of social media. As I’ve said, in small communities forms of groupthink are possible. As they are outside of the internet. But generally speaking, we are exposed to much more information and opinions than ever before.
That people become part of subcultures with its own language and such is a completely normal phenomenon and in no way new. What‘s new about it is the global reach of certain subcultures. That is rather new and down to social media.
The general issue I personally see is not the ascend of social media with so called echo chambers. It’s an erosion of journalistic standards, the lesser reach of good and factual journalism due to the widespread and generally not fought ascend of pseudo journalistic platforms and everything that goes with it. We are not in a crisis caused by echo chambers, but by a bleed out of quality journalism across the globe. Which is a consequence of social media, search engines and simply capitalist practices in general.
To get back on topic: I’ve stumbled over this quote by Rowling:
„it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence.“
It is directly related to trans people. That is basically as fascist as it gets. I think there is absolutely no wriggle room there. A damning proof of her horrible views and character.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/...-deserves-a-blanket-presumption-of-innocence/
„it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence.“
It is directly related to trans people. That is basically as fascist as it gets. I think there is absolutely no wriggle room there. A damning proof of her horrible views and character.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/...-deserves-a-blanket-presumption-of-innocence/
Eh? It’s not a very helpful thing to say but it’s true. Can apply to any group. “Person x couldn’t possibly have done this bad thing because they’re a policeman/doctor/whatever”. That’s a bad assumption to make.
She’s taking a swing at a straw man. A non-existent argument that no trans woman would ever harm a woman. It’s a crappy debating tactic but not remotely fascist.
I agree with your point in general, but I suspect this one is because you've subscribed to those subreddits but not /r/liverpoolfc.